EPA Awards Whole Foods the 2007 Green Power Partner Award

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has made its 2007 Green Power Partner Awards and Whole Foods Market was a recipient for having achieved 100 percent alternative wind power electricity usage along with other major commitments to renewable green energy.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) yearly acknowledges the leading companies, universities, government agencies and other organizations throughout the nation that have made the most progress toward their commitment to using alternative renewable green power sources and certificate. The EPA acts in conjunction with the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Center for Resource Solutions (CRS) to identify and award the leaders in green energy. The EPA focuses on green power purchasers, while the DOE focuses on green power suppliers and CRS on leaders in building up new and viable markets for the implementation of alternative renewable green power.

The EPA presents three categories of awards to green power purchasers under Green Power Leadership Awards, which are part of the EPA's Green Power Partnership program. The categories are Green Power Partner of the Year, Green Power Purchasing, and On-site Generation. Whole Foods Market, a 100 percent green power purchaser, received the more comprehensive Green Power Partner of the Year Award. Two panels of highly qualified judges reviewed nominations for the various awards and evaluated each nominee on the following strict criteria.

The first evaluation was of the nominee's commitment to alternative renewable, low-carbon footprint, commodity and certificate energy purchases. The second was of the nominee's ability to be ingenious in finding ways to overcome obstacles to the use of green energy. The third and fourth were their efforts at organization-wide and extra-organization communication in building a green energy base along with the nominee's overall strategy for finding ways and means of implementing green, or renewable, energy opportunities, sources and programs. Some of the judges on the panel were from the DOE, EPA, Solar Electric Power Association and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, among other prestigious panel members.

Whole Foods Market received the Green Power Partner of the Year Award because Whole Foods has achieved 100 percent commodity purchase of wind power electricity. This class of purchase relates to company use. Whole Foods has also extended beyond commodity purchase and made renewable energy certificate purchases, which are also called green certificates or tradable renewable certificates. The purchase of a green certificate funds alternative, renewable, green energy projects in various energy sectors and in many different locales.

A U. S. example of the use of green certificates is New Jersey's Clean Energy Program (CEP). Within New Jersey's CEP, another program is operated called the New Jersey Solar Renewable Energy Certificate program (SREC). Every time a set number of electrical units of solar energy is generated by a New Jersey solar plant, a renewable (green) certificate is issued. These may be purchased separately from the energy generated. The money then funds further generation of solar energy, thus benefiting the New Jersey CEP.

The purchaser is benefited because these green certificates can be used to offset the carbon emissions of the purchaser: If the purchaser fail to reduce their CO2 emissions to the mandated level, then they will fund somebody else's successful efforts and get the benefit of a compensatory credit applied toward their own CO2 emission levels. Additionally, these renewable energy certificates can be traded on national and international markets, so someone else's repurchase the original certificate can fund their projects to further reduce carbon emissions. All the CO2 of the world meets in one place: the atmosphere. If I can contribute to CO2 reduction here or over there, I have successfully contributed to CO2 reduction.

Whole Foods made purchases of over 509 million kilowatt-hours of wind-based renewable energy certificates in addition to the commodity purchases of wind power electricity for their internal uses. What's more, Whole Foods has initiated an innovative new program that allows individual shoppers to make in-store (point-of-purchase) purchases of renewable energy certificates: You and I can help fund wind energy projects.

These green certificate cards are called Wind Power Cards and are best likened and compared to a means of purchasing a portion of a share of stock in IBM: the price of a 100 share investment in IBM may be prohibitive for me but purchasing a portion of a share would be within my means. This analogy perfectly suits the Wind Power Cards: a full investment in 1000 kilowatt-hours of wind energy or solar energy may be beyond my means; but I can buy a portion of the renewable energy certificate issued to correspond to those 1000 kilowatts of energy by purchasing a Wind Power Card. Remember that CO2 emissions reduced here or there results in less CO2 in the atmosphere.

Only 100 national entities were qualified to compete for the EPA (purchaser) and DOE (supplier) awards. The pity is that so few companies, governmental institutions, universities and other organizations are applying themselves to renewable green energy alternatives, but the good example of Whole Foods will be impetus to more and more participation in renewable alternative energy practices. It is readily seen why the EPA honored Whole Foods Market with the Green Partner of the Year Award. Some other recipients of the award were Wells Fargo, Johnson & Johnson, Staples and PepsiCo.

"EPA Greenpower Partnership 2007 Awards," U. S. Environmental Protection Agency.

"2007 Green Power Leadership Awards," U. S. Green Power Leadership Awards.